Hi "persons",
this is your unreconstructed male chauvinist pater familias talking. We DO deserve a voice, the few endangered specimens allowed to persist/subsist/exist in this politically correct, gender-neutral, new-age western society? Thanks, I thought so...

I'm coming to this scene a bit late, I admit (67.5 years on the planet, and enyoying every moment!), but a somewhat embittered, soi-disant feminist female single-mum-to-be youngster of mine has thrown down a gauntlet. (She blogs with a passion, has been on our local TV as an example of such etc. and MUST get a point of reference somewhere. Where did I fail as a parent?)

So, for the moment, this serves as an attempt at reconstructing 'quality time' in cyberspace... (We called it "privatstunden = private lessons" when the pelicans were waddling. They could individually "book" them with me when I was busy as a journo...)

One last admission, while I'm re-surfacing from a glass or two of still excellent Lindemans Padthaway Reserve Chardonnay 1998 (some idiot wrote in our barely respected metro newspaper that chardy goes bad while you're looking at the label, and cellars are full of spoilt chardonnay. I can't agree: my cellar (which I built myself in what I modestly claim to be 'Australia's best shed') contains at least one case still of still very drinkable Lindemans Reserve Chardonnay 1998). Oh, the admission! Dammit, I forgot - early onset Alzheimer's? Well, ask me next time, I promise to come clean!
Cheers for now,
Carioca